Ruby Red Rum
by Rhi
Summary: Jack laments over his last bottle of rum...


**Ruby-Red Rum**

Rum.

Lovely, shiny, ruby-red rum. 

It sloshed about in the bottom of the bottle sitting a few inches in front of Captain Jack Sparrow's face. He was lying on the floor of his cabin, aboard the Black Pearl, staring at the heavenly drink that he was heavily inebriated with most of the time.

It was his last bottle.

Jack sobbed quietly and stroked the bottle. "Where did all me RUM go?" he asked it quietly. "Used to be so many...so many bottles, so verr' many," he continued. He was silent for a moment, just staring mournfully at the bottle. 

Suddenly, he pounced, grabbing the bottle and downing a good portion of it all in one smooth movement. He swished the burning liquid around in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it, feeling it slide down his esophagus. Jack sighed in delight and hugged the bottle to his chest.  
"I luuurve you, rum," he told the inanimate bottle. "Yer the only thing that makes me life bearable. That an' treasure, o' course," he added thoughtfully.

Jack considered the situation carefully. He had rum, even if it was only half a bottle. The only thing missing was treasure.

He fished around in his jacket and found a few old gold coins he'd been saving to buy more rum. He put the precious bottle on the ground and arranged the coins around it in a crooked semi-circle. Jack sat back and examined his work.

"Rum an' treasure," he said triumphantly, and stretched himself out on the deck, staring at the small horde of things that meant most to him in the world.

It had been tough, as of late. No rum, and no treasure in sight. Not even the odd British ship to shoot at, even though his pistol was loaded and the Pearl was practically sinking from the weight of all the cannonballs it was carrying in. Jack couldn't remember a more boring time in his life.

Well, there were boring times, but usually in those times he had rum. Or at least some treasure, although he preferred spending the treasure rather than looking at it.

Which was, he thought in retrospect, probably why he didn't _have_ any treasure any longer. He'd spent it all buying rum, and...more rum.

"It's always one thing or the other with you, isn't it?" growled Jack, glaring at the bottle of rum and the coins surrounding it. "Treasure or rum. Tryin' to make me choose between you. Well, I won't do it, I say! If I can't have neither, I'll have both! Er..." He turned the sentence over in his head. "Scratch that, reverse it," he told the bottle of rum.

Jack stood and swayed from side to side dangerously. He managed to walk a few steps, avoiding the pile of rum bottles he had finished off earlier. 

"See? I'm walkin' away! I'm not giving in, not this time, oh ho! You can't outwit Captain Jack Sparrow, can ye, ye bunch of bloody-" Jack tripped over a chair he was _sure_ hadn't been there before and fell flat on his face.

He crawled slowly over to the rum bottle, and picked up the gold scattered there. He stuffed the coins clumsily back into his jacket pocket and glared at the bottle, which seemed to just sit there, mocking him. Jack would not have been surprised if the bottle started leaping about, screeching "Drink me! Drink me!" Fortunately, it didn't.

He inched his fingers around the neck of the bottle and dragged it closer. The rum inside sloshed around invitingly. Jack sniffed the lip of the bottle and sighed at the satisfyingly fermented smell that he sucked into his nostrils. "Lovely warm rum. Ruby-red rum," he muttered. "If only I could drink you, but I've got t' keep you fer later..."

He licked the bottle hopefully and then closed his eyes.  "Mmm," he said. "Rum rum rum."  
Jack loved rum. He loved it a lot. And he was notorious for the adventures he went on while completely drunk out of his mind - which was basically _all_ of his adventures, as he was rarely sober. Not completely sober, anyway. The soberest Jack had ever been was when he hadn't had a drink for twenty-two hours, and he had hated it. Things started to make _sense_ when he didn't drink, and he preferred to go through life in a rummy haze.

"Yo ho ho, it's a pirate's life for me!" Jack sang loudly, and then laughed uproariously. The sound of his own voice sounded very amusing all of a sudden. "Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!" He raised the bottle of rum to his lips and downed most of it before he remembered he was supposed to be saving it.

He held the almost-empty container away from him in horror. "Nooo! Me rum! It's almost all gone!" he wailed, despairing. He glared at the alcoholic liquid inside the jug as if it was its fault that he had drunk most of it, and collapsed onto his back, resting the bottle on his stomach.

The thing that worried him most was that they were currently adrift somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean, and it would take a few weeks to get to an island that had any sort of drink on it apart from coconut milk. And Jack _hated_ coconut milk. 

Well, he didn't hate it exactly; he just preferred it with a nip of rum mixed in it.

Jack brought the bottle a few inches from his face and stared at the two centimeters or so of rum left in the bottom. "You win this time, rum!" he told the bottle before downing the last few dregs.

He stretched out on the ground, empty bottle clutched tightly in his fist, wondering what he would do in the next few weeks before he could get some rum. He'd probably go insane and start drinking people's blood or some such. 

"No more rum," whispered Jack, the severity of the issue sinking in. He bolted to his feet. "NO MORE RUM!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, and staggered drunkenly out of his cabin.

Most of the crew were asleep in their various quarters, but Annamaria was awake and at the wheel. She stared as the captain came careening towards her, obviously drunk out of his mind (even more so than usual, anyway), sobbing.

"NO MORE RUM!" he yelled, and clutched at Annamaria's jacket as he fell to his knees in front of her. "Marianna! There's no more rum!" he said, his eyes widening manically.

"That's what YOU think," said Annamaria. 

Grinning, she produced a bottle from behind her back and, before Jack's very eyes, downed the entire contents in two gulps.  
"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Jack woke in a cold sweat. He sat up to find himself in the cool darkness of the ship's storeroom, surrounded by wooden kegs of rum.

He stood and walked over to one of the kegs, cautiously lifting up the lid. He grinned as he saw it was full to the brim with that beautiful ruby-red liquid. 

"Ah, rum," Jack sighed in happiness, and dunked his head in it.


End file.
